Epstein-Barr Virus Infection: How It Affects Your Gut

Author's Bio: Marcie Vaske, MS, LN, CNS

Today we're going to dive into a fascinating and often overlooked topic, Epstein-Barr virus or EBV, and I'll explain how it impacts your gut health.

So first, let's try to understand what is Epstein-Barr Virus Infection.

And EBV is actually in the family of the herpes virus and it's best known for causing mono. But a surprising fact about Epstein-Barr virus is that it can actually lay dormant in your body for years and over time you don't even know it's there and suddenly it activates.

How Epstein-Barr Virus Infection Reactivates

Now the reactivation of the EBV actually can pose a lot of immune challenges, chronic fatigue feelings, and also how it impacts your gut health. And as I said, EBV can lay dormant in your body for years, and when it begins to reactivate, it's because it has lived inside our B cells, which is an immune cell. And this EBV is usually kept under control by your immune system, but there are certain things that can cause this reactivation to flare.

Now, before we dig into what causes these reactivation to occur, my name is Marcie Vaske and I'm a functional medicine nutritionist with Oswald Digestive Clinic. At Oswald Digestive Clinic, we see people who struggle with EBV dormant, EBV or even having small flares. Also, obviously a lot of gut health issues. If you want to make an initial appointment, I'll link our website here where you can easily do that. And I'm also going to link our free guide, which is Five Ways to Improve Your Gut Health.

[Video Transcript Below Video - it is the same information]

Common Triggers for EBV Reactivation

Now, if you have had mono or just a very, very bad cold, sometimes this EBV is also associated with this. As I said, it can lay dormant in the body for years, but certain triggers can bring out a reactivation.

Stress

Number one trigger is going to be stress. So if there's chronic stress going on, it is suppressing our immune system. So this high cortisol comes out and creates an environment where EBV can easily reactivate.

Not Enough Sleep

Also, not enough sleep. So if you're getting poor sleep or under the amount of sleep that we should be getting, which is seven to eight hours, if you're getting closer to five or six, and that's kind of a consistent thing for you, your immune system is taxed and therefore a reactivation of EBV can occur.

Chronic Inflammation

Another trigger is going to be chronic inflammation in the body. So essentially the inflammation is taking the attention off the immune system so your body's working hard at reducing inflammation instead of keeping viruses or a viral load from reactivating.

Nutritional Deficiencies

Also, nutritional deficiencies can also cause a reactivation. So if we're low in zinc, vitamin D, for example, those both help support our immune system. And if we're not eating foods that we're getting plenty of that in, then sometimes our immune system is compromised and we end up with a flare.

Hormonal Changes

Now, another one you might not think about, but a trigger is also hormonal changes. So changes with our estrogen, progesterone, and even thyroid disturbances can impact our immunity. And in this way is when an activation can occur.

What Happens During EBV Reactivation

So there are several triggers that can actually reactivate an EBV flare. So what is actually happening with this reactivation in the body?

So essentially what happens is that when there's a trigger big enough for an extended period of time, this reactivation occurs and the EBV virus starts to replicate. It actually starts producing new viral particles, and in this way it can spread the virus to different B cells as well as other tissues in the body. And it often does stay at low levels. So just kind of this low level chronic issue going on. And it can feel like fatigue, can feel like gut symptoms. It can even give you swollen lymph nodes, or if you struggle with an autoimmune disorder, it can increase a flare. So essentially a reactivation of the EBV isn't a full-blown sickness, but rather these kind of symptoms that could be related to many things. But today I really want to focus in on how EBV impacts your gut health.

How EBV Impacts Your Gut Health

So as we know about 70% of your immune system resides in your gut. So therefore, when EBV reactivates your gut is something that feels at first, EBV can create leaky gut. And leaky gut is where we have a more peral intestinal tract creating toxins to get into our blood supply and then creating these antibodies and more symptoms due to that.

EBV can also create inflammation. So from there we could feel symptoms like bloating, just generalized gut discomfort or even food sensitivities. And essentially an EBV disturbance in the gut creates a microbiome shift where it kind of creates this environment where our good bacteria make it hard to thrive. So you can hear that EBV really does create a lot of different symptoms. It's not just, oh, I have a flare of EBV and now I have bloating. It could be essentially many different things. So understanding how this virus can really take a toll on your body in the long term is going to be essential to your overall gut health.

Symptoms to Watch For

So what are some symptoms that you want to watch out for? And if you have a reactivation of EBV, and of course again, if you've had mono in the past or even the Epstein-Barr viral load was high in the past from a very, very peg cold that you struggled with, you will maybe just be more watchful now when symptoms start kind of coming and going for no particular reason.

Now, as I kind of talked about some of the symptoms with the gut health that seem to occur with EBV, they are kind of tricky to really notice and you may just completely overlook that. It could be a viral load. You're going to think, well, oh, maybe I ate something or Well, I have bloating, I have IBS, et cetera, et cetera. So some of these symptoms that are just such low kind of chronic low grade symptoms that we get used to in a sense could be this EBV just kind of kicking up and then it calms down.

Now, a couple of 'em I already talked about, well one would be not only the swollen lymph nodes. So if you have just a swollen lymph node and really no other symptoms, it could be that this EBV is just slightly increasing in your body or maybe you're feeling kind of headachey more often or just kind of slight body aches. Of course, even neurologically we can have some symptoms like more of an irritable mood, maybe more anxiety, and even just plain old brain fog seems to be increasing. And of course, coming back to the gut, we're going to experience bloating, abdominal cramping, maybe your IBS is flaring. You could have more diarrhea or constipation and maybe even some nausea and just kind of not feeling very hungry.

Supporting Your Immune System

So now we understand what EBV is, we understand how it reactivates, we can now understand what it may look or feel like in our body. So what can we do about it? And the number one answer here is help to strengthen your immune system. So what are ways that we can strengthen our immune system?

Number one, we can include or adopt an anti-inflammatory diet if you don't want to go that far into restricted kind of eating. If you're not really struggling hard with it, maybe it's just sort of revamping your foods into more whole real foods, getting rid of just sort of the processed packaged stuff so that all you're really taking in are proteins, healthy carbohydrates, vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats.

Another really big one is just managing your stress. And I know I would say that on every single video I do probably I talk about stress and how impactful it is on our gut health. And now we're learning another way. If we are high stressed, it can reactivate this EBV virus and then creating more gut symptoms.

And of course, keeping up your nutritional supports. So making sure that you're getting enough Vitamin D is always positive to get a lab run for vitamin D just to see where you're at. You want to definitely be over 50. Between 50 and 80 is a nice place to land for your vitamin D levels. And of course you can even check your zinc levels and making sure that that immune system is really supported at the nutrient level.

Final Thoughts

So I think what we've learned today is that EBV is one of those viruses that are dormant within our body can reactivate basically at any time, and there are certain triggers that impact it. I would say that most of us have had EBV in our lifetime just due to all the sicknesses that we may have gotten over all the years we've been here on this earth. And so it's uncommon not to have ever been exposed to EBV, it's just how your body deals with it.

And if you have any of these symptoms that I talked about, not only gut health wise, but just a few of the other ones that I mentioned, if they just kind seem to be lingering and then kind of go away for a few weeks and then all of a sudden there's another little increase in the symptom again and it's just not making any sense, you may be having some EBV reactivation and using some of the tips I talked about, going to more of an anti-inflammatory diet, just cleaning up your food in general to hold real foods and make sure that you have your vitamin D levels are in a good place and zinc levels.

So thanks for watching us. I will have our link to our website here where you can easily make an initial appointment.

And until next time, thanks.

If you'd like to explore any of this information further or obtain an individualized nutrition plan, you can schedule an initial appointment at our clinic.  We also take insurance and some of our clients get full coverage, which is great.

Or you can just start by downloading our FREE GUIDE: 5 WAYS TO IMPROVE GUT HEALTH